People's Commission Network Popular Forum
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Schedule
Whose security? Our Security!
Countering the National Security Agenda
People's Commission Network Forum
Concordia University, Pavillon Hall 1455
4-6 February 2011
Childcare: Friday from 5pm at 2110 MacKay; Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 5:30pm at H760 (7th floor, Hall Building)
| Friday, February 4 | 7 pm to 9 pm | Panel: Historical perspectives on National Security: Delegitimization of Dissent and Marginalization of Communities
(H-110, Hall Building) |
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| Saturday, February 5 | 10 am to 12 | Panel: CSIS – Who needs them?
(H767, Hall Building) |
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| 12 to 1 pm | Lunch
(7th floor, Hall Building) |
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| 1 to 3 pm | Panel: Virtual 'walking tour' of Montreal's Security Industrial Complex
(H767, Hall Building) |
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| 3 to 3:30 | Break | ||||||
| 3:30 to 5:30 | Workshop: Towards a People's History Collective in Montreal?
(H762, Hall Building) |
Workshop: CSIS Watch (H763, Hall Building) |
Workshop: Mapping Montreal's (in)Security Industrial Complex
(H767, Hall Building) |
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| Sunday, February 6 | 10 am to 12 | Panel: Immigration Security Measures: Evaluating our Struggles
(H767, Hall Building) |
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| 12 to 1 pm | Lunch
(7th floor, Hall Building) |
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| 1 to 3 pm | Panel: Canada's terrorist list, a mechanism of social and political control
(H767, Hall Building) |
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| 3 to 3:30 | Break | ||||||
| 3:30 to 5:30 | Workshop: Media Fightback on Immigration Security Measures
(H763, Hall Building) |
Workshop: Campaign against Canada's terrorist list
(H762, Hall Building) |
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| 6 pm to 8 pm | Dinner in Solidarity with Mohamed Harkat
(7th floor, Hall Building) |
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¿Cuál Seguridad? ¡Nuestra Seguridad!
Foro organizado por la Red de la Comisión Popular
Universidad Concordia, Pavillon Hall, 1455 Maisonneuve O..
4 a 6 feb 2011
Jardín de ninxs : viernes : desde las 5pm al Centro 2110, 2149 Mackay; sábado y domingo de las 10 am a las 5:30 pm Pavillon Hall, 1455 de Maisonneuve O., # H760
Forum Agenda - Details
Friday, 4 February 2011
7pm to 9pm
Panel: Historical perspectives on National Security: Delegitimization of Dissent and Marginalization of Communities
Hall Building, 1455 de Maisonneuve W., H-110
The history of criminalization of dissent and national security in Canada. The presentations will be oriented around four main themes (colonial control; “moral scares” and state/media-induced panics; internment, borders, and social control; and Quebec resistance and repression).
Speakers:- Marc-André Cyr, political science student
- Ellen Gabriel, activist from the community of Kanehsatake
- Ian McKay, Professor of Canadian history, Queen’s University
- Mona Oikawa, Associate Professor in the Race, Ethnicity and Indigeneity Program, York University
Facilitated by: Fred Burrill, activist and historian, and Helen Hudson, political prisoner solidarity organizer.
Saturday, 5 February 2011
10am to 12pm
Panel: CSIS – Who needs them?
Hall Building, 1455 de Maisonneuve W., H767
Panel will provide some context and history of national security work by the RCMP that is continued by CSIS, as well as the conditions in which CSIS was formed, including the legitimation crisis faced by the RCMP over its "dirty tricks" against the Québec independence movement and the left. It will also provide first-hand accounts of targetting by CSIS. By asking the question of whose security they serve, the panel aims to throw into question the very existence of national security agencies like CSIS.
Speakers:- Gary Kinsman, co-author of The Canadian War on Queers: National Security as Sexual Regulation and editor of Whose National Security?
- Yavar Hameed, involved in advising Muslims and Arabs in context of CSIS investigations since 2001; currently counsel for Mohamed Mahjoub
- Marie-Ève Sauvé, active in Tadamon! and the Convergence against Anti-Capitalist Struggles (la CLAC); “preventively” arrested before G20 protests in Toronto in June 2010.
- Clifton Arihwakehte Nicholas, community activist and journalist from Kanehsatake.
Facilitated by Tatiana Gomez, community-based lawyer.
12pm to 1pm: Lunch Break
Hall Building, 1455 de Maisonneuve W., 7th floor
1pm to 3pm
Panel: Virtual 'walking tour' of Montreal's Security Industrial Complex
Hall Building, 1455 de Maisonneuve W., H767
Virtual walking tour (a power-point presentation) will "take" participants to sites in Montreal where technologies of the national security agenda are produced and promoted. The tour is organized around four (4) themes: UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles) used for surveillance; simulations and other computerized tools; privatization of security and associations of private security companies; and biometrics and personal identification tools. These four themes interlink with each other and share features (e.g. privatisation and contracting out of security and military activities; blurring of military and domestic applications; corporate surveillance as an entry to state surveillance; etc). These interconnections, and their significance, including the role of the state in promoting these technologies and companies, will be emphasized. The ways in which allegedly "defensive" products and activities serve to reinforce the idea of "terrorism" and to legitimize aggressive action will be explored. As well, we will locate the sites of various resistances to these "security" approaches. A "tour guide" will explain why the place is noted, while "experts" will describe how it fits into general issues of the security industrial complex and members of local struggles will explain what this means for "security".
3pm to 3:30pm: Break
3:30pm to 5:30pm: Action workshops
Workshop: Towards a People's History Collective in Montreal?
Hall Building, 1455 de Maisonneuve W., H762
Space to launch a discussion and the concrete beginnings of a new “People’s History Collective” that can ground our movements and resistance in historical knowledge of popular struggle against the national security regime and other forms of oppression.
Workshop: CSIS Watch
Hall Building, 1455 de Maisonneuve W., H763
CSIS Watch has functioned as a loose collective for over a year. The group will summarize its acheivements over the past months and propose a plan of action for the coming months. The workshop will include a brainstorm on strategy and action for CSIS Watch in Montreal.
Workshop: Mapping Montreal's (in)Security Industrial Complex
Hall Building, 1455 de Maisonneuve W., H767
This workshop will be used to develop the walking tour of Montreal’s security industry, identifying further interconnections and additional sites. People will be encouraged to join the project to move it forward and to give the tour at later dates. A goal of the project is for the tour to be given several times throughout the next year.
Sunday, 6 February 2011
10am to 12pm
Panel: Immigration Security Measures: Evaluating our Struggles
Hall Building, 1455 de Maisonneuve W., H767
Panel will start with an overview of the legal framework around immigration security measures and an overview of recent campaigns against security certificates, other deportations on security grounds (so-called section 86 cases), “security-delayed cases”, and politically-manipulated denials of visas. The next three speakers will provide an analysis of specific campaigns. All speakers will be encouraged to discuss the issue of media coverage and also government dis/information campaigns around these issues.
Speakers:
- Matthew Behrens, community organizer with Campaign against Secret Trials in Canada
- Hassan Almrei, arrested under a security certificate in 2001 won his case in 2009.
- Nazila Bettache, community organizer with the former Ivan Apaolaza Sancho support campaign
- Mostafa Henaway, Immigrant Workers’ Centre
12pm to 1pm: Lunch
Hall Building, 1455 de Maisonneuve W., 7th floor
1pm to 3pm
Panel: Canada’s terrorist lists, a mechanism of social and political control
Hall Building, 1455 de Maisonneuve W., H767
The panel will look at the terrorist list established under Canada’s Anti-Terrorist Act in 2001 and other listing mechanisms used by the Canadian state. Going beyond questions of procedural fairness and the merits of including specific groups, the panel will explore the list as a mechanism of control of populations and of social movements.
Speakers:
- Dominique Peschard, President, Ligue des droits et libertés
- Issam Al Yamani, Palestinian refugee, writer and activist, under a deportation order on the grounds of past membership in the PFLP
- Video with extracts from interviews on the political and community impact of listing the FARC, PKK, Abousfian Abdelrazik, LTTE and Babar Khalsa.
Facilitated by Jared Will, immigration lawyer
3pm to 3:30pm: Break
3:30pm to 5:30pm: Action workshops
Workshop: Media Fightback on Immigration Security Measures
Hall Building, 1455 de Maisonneuve W., H763
The workshop has the goal of sharing experiences and resources to respond to inaccurate media coverage and the government’s overtly negative media campaigning around immigration security topics, as well as to proactively promote alternatives to the typical media constructions. The workshop will kick off with two short informational presentations, followed by a semi-structured discussion and brainstorm around questions of what has been tried and why (goals, strategies and tactics), what happened and why (difficulties/successes and barriers, specifically in context of campaigns related to immigration and ‘terrorist suspects’), and needs and resources (pooling resources, identifying gaps). We will also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of mainstream media campaigns compared to independent (often web-based) information campaigns. Groups who already are or may want to be in the media on these issues are specifically invited and asked to prepare in advance some ideas on what would be useful for their organizations' media work and/or what forms of collaboration on media work they might like to participate in with other organizations.
Presentation One: "Case study" of role media played in portraying the Tamil refugees who arrived in Vancouver by boat as "terrorists" and "threats". Ramani Belendra, community worker at SAWCC, founding member of Canadian Tamil Congress, Quebec Chapter.
Presentation Two: A look at how the media is manipulated by the government and has its own structural biases on issues at the intersection of immigration and "national security". Tamara Vukov, researcher, filmmaker, and activist
Resource Person: Sophie Lamarche Harkat, human rights campaigner
Workshop: Campaign against Canada's terrorist list
Hall Building, 1455 de Maisonneuve W., H762
The people who participated in the video on the social and political impact of the listing of various groups will be present as discussants and the. The idea of joining together to launch a campaign to abolish the terrorist list in Canada will be presented for discussion and feedback around a few concrete proposals. Among the questions to be brainstormed: campaign strategy, goals and formulation; linking, globally, with other campaigns against blacklisting; engaging with communities who are affected by the lists. The main ideas will be summarized and follow up steps established.
6pm to 8pm: Dinner in solidarity with Mohamed Harkat
Hall Building, 1455 de Maisonneuve W., 7th floor
The closing event of the forum will be a solidarity dinner with Mohamed and Sophie Harkat. The Harkats’ eight year struggle for justice against a security certificate entered a new and critical phase in December 2010, when the Federal Court – in a shocking display of complacency towards CSIS misconduct and biased perspective - issued a ruling against Mohamed. Other conference speakers will be present to express support for Mohamed’s struggle and the importance of standing together against the injustice represented by the security certificate regime.
Join us for a delicious, free meal and warm atmosphere of solidarity!
The People's Commission Network is a working group of QPIRG-Concordia qpirgconcordia.org 514.848.7585 info@qpirgconcordia.org
Contact the People's Commission Network: QPIRG Concordia - Peoples's Commission Network c/o Concordia University 1455 de Maisonneuve Ouest Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8 commissionpopulaire@gmail.com
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